2012 December

As a well-known British portrait photographer, Jonathan Worth has taken photographs of hundreds of famous people. But don’t take his photography classes if you’re hoping to meet Jude Law. “I see that I am quite a commodity for a university: I’m one step away from someone who’s incredibly famous. And there’s a misguided assumption that because I have photographed famous people, that I am somehow connected and friends with them.” Today, Jonathan is offering his students at Coventry University a different kind of connectedness, a kind that’s less about celebrity and more about building a community of peers.

Along with fellow photographer Matt Johnston, Jonathan teaches a course at Coventry College called #PHONAR (photography and narrative). Although thousands of people have participated in the course over the Internet and all of the lectures and course materials are licensed CC BY-SA, he doesn’t consider it a MOOC. But it might be a hugely important step in the development of open education.

When we interviewed Jonathan for The Power of Open a few years ago, he was cautiously optimistic about the possibilities for photographers in a more connected world. “We don’t have all the answers,” he said, “but CC […] helps me take advantage of the things working against me.”

When Jonathan was approached to teach an undergraduate photography class, he was excited about it, but also leery of how to teach young photographers as they enter a world in which professional opportunities are far from a guarantee. “Me as supplier doesn’t work. I used to think that my product was photographs, and that was it. It doesn’t work that way. I can’t control my images on the internet. And so when I stopped trying to do that, it changed the way that I thought about myself and what I do.

“I said, ‘I’ll write these classes so long as they’re not the same classes that I’d done before, which were written in the 70s.’ It would be morally bereft of me to do that.”

And so Jonathan set out to put the classes together, asking himself some tough questions about what it means to be a photographer today, and what it means to be a teacher too. “I agreed to do the classes, so long as they put front and center that my old business model and career structure were gone. No one’s written what it means to be a 21st century photographer. No one’s written that book. That also meant that I wasn’t necessarily the best teacher in the world. I had to learn my craft as a teacher, but I didn’t know all the answers. So I couldn’t sit there and spout off the answers.”

Jonathan explained to me that he saw the class as an opportunity to explore these complicated issues with his students as part of a broader community. And involving that community necessarily meant licensing the course openly, because that allowed him and his students to engage with a broader community.

“I’m trying not to use the word ‘open’ now,” Jonathan told me. “I prefer the word ‘connected.’” And connected the classes are: Jonathan regularly collaborates with luminaries from the photography world — Steve Pyke and Chris Floyd have been recent guests — but so have people from other fields. “Cory Doctorow, he’s obviously not a photographer. But photographers don’t have all the answers. I was looking around — authors are making some ground. Musicians are lightyears ahead of us.”

But here’s the secret sauce of of Jonathan’s connected classroom: each of those contributors brings their own communities into the fold. And Jonathan sees those connections as the real value of conducting the class openly. “That abundance of people is not a burden. I have 20 people in the room, and one person who tunes in for one of my classes, and they look at one of my students’ work, and they tell one of their friends about it, they’ve amplified the classroom experience for that student. They’re bringing attention to the student. They’re bringing support. That’s what the students need, to have that network.”

And here on the blog, we’re celebrating the diverse group of artists and creators who use Creative Commons licensing. Behance founder and CEO Scott Belsky explains why artists don’t need to be afraid of open licensing. And we welcome one of the newest members of the family of CC-licensed works, virtual pop star Hatsune Miku. Finally, we highlight Open Attribute, a browser plug-in that makes attribution easy.

Throughout CC’s tenth anniversary celebrations, we’re profiling media platforms with CC integration, and talking to the people behind those platforms to see what role CC plays in their communities.

Behance is a platform and community for designers and other creative people. Behance is a major hub for designers to be seen; its testimonials page has dozens of stories, both of designers who got work by sharing their portfolios on Behance and of big-name companies who used it to find talent. Most interestingly, Creative Commons licensing is the default on Behance. When you select “All Rights Reserved” for a project, you’re warned that “This will limit your exposure.”

I wanted to know why Behance placed so much importance on CC licenses, so I reached out to founder and CEO Scott Belsky. I also asked Scott to pick a few of his favorite CC-licensed projects on Behance. A few of those are sprinkled throughout this blog post; the rest are listed at the end.

How much of the content on Behance is CC-licensed? Has that number stayed constant or changed since you implemented CC licensing?

Over 75% of content published on Behance is CC-licensed. We implemented CC-licensing from the very beginning, and it is by far the preferred copyright setting. Those that choose otherwise are often doing so at their client’s request or for some other contractual concern.

For some artists and designers, the argument for CC licensing a portfolio might not be obvious. Can you tell me any success stories users have had with open licensing, or examples of interesting conversations you’ve had with users about how they use CC?

The primary driver of CC licensing is a desire to share broadly with reasonable restrictions. Behance is a global platform of over a million creative professionals from around the world. One of the primary benefits of being on Behance is the constant stream of inspiration and opportunities. There have been all sorts of collaborations – many of them non-commercial and born out of love – that are the result of CC-licensing. We want Behance to be the wind at the backs of creative careers, and CC has been a primary ingredient in the growth and values of Behance.

Since Behance started, have you seen creators’ attitudes about sharing changing?

Sharing is the new “networking.” Rather than focus on business card exchanges and networking receptions, the creative community builds professional networks by sharing their creations, feedback, and resources. Look no further than GitHub, a platform for sharing amongst the development community that likely facilitates as many career opportunities as traditional resumes. In Behance, we see a growing value for transparency and attribution. Many thousands of projects are published every single day, and we’re helping organize the data around this creative work. We’re also trying to help people sort through the work and find talent.

If you create something in this world, you should get credit for it. The creative industry has never valued attribution, especially when it comes to advertising and entertainment. But the power is shifting away from agencies and middlemen to the creatives themselves. It’s an exciting trend, but it depends on a continued culture of transparency and sharing.

“Nils is part of our IT team and was down to help replace some servers,” IceCube communications manager Laurel Norris told us in an email. “Blaise and Felipe are just now starting their stint as winterovers – meaning they will be at the South Pole for the entire winter (24 hour darkness). Aside for a short trip to the coastal research station of McMurdo, they will not leave the South Pole until Nov 2013.”

As it turns out, IceCube researchers spend a lot of time thinking about the future of open. In its data policy (PDF), IceCube echoes the Antarctic Treaty’s provision that “to the greatest extent feasible and practicable, scientific observations and results from Antarctica shall be exchanged and made freely available.” For information on data sharing in Antarctica, see our case study on Polar Commons.

We introduce 10 teams of musicians sharing their music under a Creative Commons License. From Brazil to Iceland, from Hip-Hop to Indie Rock, discover awesome music from all over the genre, all over the world. CC10Musicians App allows you to listen to the 10 selected artists’ work on live streaming and share some spread-worth music with your Facebook and Twitter friends.

The app looks (and sounds) great, and is easy to use. Many thanks to CC Korea for a fantastic birthday gift!

“Hatsune Miku has inspired thousands of people to create their own musical recordings and remixes. It’s fitting that she’d become CC-licensed, joining forces with a movement that lives to make sharing and remixing easier. I’m thrilled to welcome to welcome Hatsune to the ranks of CC-licensed works.”–Catherine Casserly, Creative Commons CEO

“Crypton’s Hatsune Miku is an amazingly unique, inspiring and successful example of how sharing pulls together in community to empowers and explosion of creativity. It’s one of my favorite projects. I’m so excited that Creative Commons can now be part of that story.”–Joi Ito, Creative Commons board member, Director at the MIT Media Lab

Hatsune Miku is the first and most famous virtual singer. What sets Miku apart from other “characters” is the original “remix-free” license for users. Since her debut in 2007, Miku have been remixed and cherished by fans, resulting in 170,000+ videos on YouTube, 95,000 songs, and 500,000+ artworks created by the community.

Hatsune Miku also played the major role at TOYOTA USA and Google Chrome TV commercials. She has performed sold-out shows with 3D images not only in Japan, but also in Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Taipei, and Singapore. To deal with growing demands from the world, Crypton Future Media Inc., which gave a birth to Hatsune Miku and owes her character, has decided to adopt the CC BY-NC license on December 14th.

“The creative culture using Hatsune Miku and related community will spread worldwide by applying a CC license to the illustration of Hatsune Miku. I hope that this encourages cross-border collaborations among creators and enables them to deepen their understanding of each other’s culture and respect to creators through their works and creation.”–Hiroyuki Ito, CEO of Crypton Future Media, Inc.

CC Portugal’s Teresa Nobre explains the #cc10 Europe project and gives a little glimpse into the life of a CC European affiliate. And Jamendo’s Pierre Gérard talks about the history of Jamendo and encourages musicians to let their music be free.

If you’re not familiar with Jamendo, it’s a community of musicians and tool for discovering new music. Unlike most other CC-enabled platforms, CC is integral to Jamendo: every songs is licensed under CC. For many songs, users can purchase commercial rights through the Jamendo PRO service.

In honor of CC10, Pierre and his team created a special #cc10 playlist of their top ten CC-licensed songs. Pierre had this to say about the playlist:

We looked back at these 8 years of existence for Jamendo; we have been blessed by the talent of so many artists that it’s hard to choose! They have made our catalog a very rich and diverse world of free music. Thanks to them, we were able to select popular songs created by artists from different parts of the world to create a playlist very diverse in terms of music genres. The most important was to choose artists that support and believe in Creative Commons, and all of these artists have promoted the concept for years.

Tell me a bit about the history of Jamendo. Was Creative Commons licensing part of your plan from the beginning?

Yes, CC licensing was in the first business model of the company. When we created Jamendo in 2004, we based our concept on free music for consumers and professional licensing, even though it took years to launch our licensing service (Jamendo PRO). Creative Commons was really the seed of Jamendo. We wanted to create a new model in the digital world where there are so many opportunities for artists to promote and share their music. We knew that some of them also have huge potential and would be able to generate revenue from their music.

Jamendo is unique among most of the media platforms we work with, in that all uploads are CC-licensed. Has that policy caused confusion among users?

Yes; we also need to evangelize and explain how CC licenses can be used. Some have been confused in the past because they were used to the “you-are-not-allowed policy” that stems from traditional copyright. The concept of CC is so much different and needs to be explained. But it’s quite easy and users understand that it is so much easier and fair.

We love hearing interesting reuse stories. Do you have any examples of tracks that got reused in surprising or amazing ways under the CC license?

We are often asked to participate in very interesting projects that are made possible by the openness of Creative Commons. We helped a Jamendo member create a compilation of CC artists in order to raise money for the victims of the tsunami in Japan. We’ve also worked with ccMixter to have our communities remix Christmas songs! Last year, we had the pleasure to see CC Spanish rock band Stormy Mondays win a contest organized by NASA and get its song “Sunrise Number 1” played in space in the Endeavour space shuttle!

What advice might you give a musician who’s unsure about sharing her work under a CC license?

There is nothing to lose and so much to gain! Music is everywhere and there is no actual way for an artist to prevent his or her music from being distributed. At the end of the day, “giving away your music for free” under a CC license creates more value in terms of fans, popularity and even money.

Where will the music industry be ten years from now? Will open licensing be the default?

It’s very likely that we see a strong growth in open licensing but I am not sure it will be the default. I like to compare open licensing with open-source software. The IT industry has seen a lot of changes since the launch of free licenses: new companies have emerged with new business models but the old ones are still there even though they’ve also had to evolve.

In 10 years, majors will still be there but they will also have learned some lessons. I am sure the place (or market share) of open licensing for music will grow with more and more artists publishing their music under CC and I hope that Jamendo will still play a big part in this new ecosystem.

One of the opportunities for Creative Commons to continue its rapid evolution is more collaboration between the various affiliates. In September, representatives of CC’s affiliates in 17 different European countries attended a regional meeting and discussed, among other things, Creative Commons’ 10th birthday. Most of the affiliates were already planning activities and events in their own countries; nevertheless, we felt that it was important to find a way to celebrate this important date as a regional network. Since the majority of the affiliates are volunteers, we cannot commit ourselves to carry out as many common actions as we would like. With other priorities in both the national and regional agendas, this activity could not require much planning and execution. The idea of creating a mixtape with Creative Commons–licensed music from around Europe – where each affiliate just had to suggest one or two tracks from her own country – seemed, therefore, a good option and got the general agreement of all those present at the meeting.

Back to our home countries, we relied on the network mailing list to get everyone involved. We did not nominate an official project lead and we did not establish any requirements other than the music being the affiliate’s preferred CC-licensed music. We could have decided to use the mixtape to promote just music licensed with one of CC’s free culture licenses (CC BY and CC BY-SA), but we wanted to get as many affiliates involved as possible and we knew that adding such limitation would only make searching for work more difficult. After all, only a very few of us work in the music industry (the others are lawyers, open content advisors, entrepreneurs, academic researchers, engineers, etc.) and not all of us are familiar with our national CC-licensed music.

Some affiliates went on asking for suggestions to their local communities and some even did contests to find their national CC-licensed music that would make into the compilation. Not all the European affiliates were able to get involved in the project, but those involved were really motivated and even found time to send contributions in respect to other European countries. In total, 16 affiliates worked together, devoting much more time than they initially thought they had available, to make this mixtape happen.

The resulting mixtape showcases the talent of 20 artists from 20 European countries: Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Israel, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK. The tracks are from genres as diverse as electronic, folk, classic, drum & bass, rock, ska and tango, and they sound awesome together (despite the fact that they were compiled by a non-musician lawyer!). Give it a listen! It is available for download under various Creative Commons licenses at Free Music Archive, SoundCloud, and the Internet Archive. The album artwork is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

On day 7 of our CC10 celebrations we have an exciting announcement: the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC) has announced a 3.5 million dollar grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for a new program to help adult English language learners improve their language skills — Integrated Digital English Acceleration (I-DEA). Importantly, all online learning modules developed for I-DEA will be made available under a Creative Commons Attribution license — the most liberal of our licences, allowing all teachers around the country and the world to reuse, remix and reinterpret them.

In honor of this announcement, we focus on education for today’s CC10 featured platform and resource. We take a look at Open content licensing for educators, one of the many courses provided by Wikieducator, a community-developed resource of free elearning content – created by the public, for the public. The Open content licensing for educators course, an initiative of the OER Foundation, has been running all this week, training educators both how to make full use of the wealth of educational resources now available for free download under CC and other open licenses, and how to share their own materials with others.

We also celebrate a milestone by another great community-created platform, as Wikicommons hits 15 million files, just in time for CC10. Wikicommons is one of the world’s oldest and largest resources of CC licensing and public domain media, from photos to videos to sound files. It’s the source of all the media you find on Wikipedia, and its files are used extensively by cultural and educational institutions to share and create open education resources. Check out our post on this great achievement to see two videos by our friends at WikiAfrica, explaining how and why a cultural institution might want to share their resources on Wikicommons.

Finally – everyone should take a moment to appreciate the fabulous CC10 poster above by @saidRmdhani. It was produced by attendees to our Arab World Regional Meeting, which has been running all this week in Cairo, and finishes up today. Congratulations to all the attendees, and we can’t wait to hear more about your workshops.